- March 11, 2025
The Community Redevelopment Agency Board for Palm Coast’s State Road 100 CRA approved Tuesday a change order of $212,999 to its contract with Willson Miller Inc. and the purchase of a property within the redevelopment area.
During public comment, Gus Ajram, a lot owner along Bulldog Drive where the city is attempting to acquire properties to make room for its improvements, said he felt the city was trying to manipulate residents out of their property.
“I am tired of you people coming in and trying to force us out,” he said, banging his fist on the podium. “It’s un-American.”
As he spoke, his voice rose in frustration. He stopped abruptly and fell forward onto the podium and to the floor, grabbing his heart.
City officials called paramedics and tried to calm Ajram and keep him on the floor as they waited for an ambulance to arrive.
Ajram was placed on a stretcher and taken to the hospital.
Palm Coast Mayor Jon Netts said he wished for a fast recovery for Ajram, whom the city has attempted negotiations with in the past to acquire his land.
The city currently acquires land for its CRA projects only when owners are willing to sell at a property’s appraised value, City Manager Jim Landon said. The city has acquired 74% of the land it wants.
The CRA, which encompasses 3,000 acres in the Town Center area of Palm Coast, is meant to reduce blighted properties within the city, to encourage development and to raise property values.
Its board is made of the City Council.
The CRA Board unanimously approved both the change order and the acquisition of property at 5720 E. State Road 100 for its appraised value of $146,500.
The change order moves forward with plans to complete improvements along Bulldog Drive in 2013 and will fund a redesign of plans for the Bulldog Drive project to reflect its current needs.
The original plan would have increased the road to four lanes. Instead, the project will maintain its two-lane road, but will focus on redirecting traffic out of Flagler Palm Coast High School and will target drainage issues in the area.
FPC is one of the few Palm Coast structures that has a recurring problem with flooding, Landon said.
The board will consider refinancing an interfund loan, as well.
The CRA is funded by tax increments on properties within its boundaries. When the State Road 100 CRA was formed in 2004, property taxes paid to local municipalities were frozen.
Any property taxes collected in excess of that amount in future years went instead into the CRA fund, which supports improvements for the area.
As more development happens within the CRA, property values are expected to increase. But when the real estate market crashed in 2008, so did the funding reinvested in the CRA. That prompted the CRA to take out a loan from the city.
The loan’s outstanding principal is $5,792,529, and the board is currently making interest-only payments on it.
Refinancing would allow the CRA to secure a lower interest rate on its loan as well as borrow the remaining $2 million needed to finish Bulldog Drive projects, said Beau Falgout, the city’s senior economic planner.
Improvements to Bulldog Drive are the last major CRA project planned, Falgout said. After that, the board could look at repaying its loan.
